Israel Insists That Iran Still Seeks a Bomb

JERUSALEM, Dec. 4 — Israel said Tuesday that it remained convinced that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons and that it had probably resumed the weapons program the Americans said was stopped in the fall of 2003.

The defense minister, Ehud Barak, rejected the American assessment of “moderate confidence” that Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program by mid-2007 and that the end to the program “represents a halt to Iran’s entire nuclear weapons program.” He suggested that Israel would not rest in its efforts to stop Iran’s activities.

“It is our responsibility to ensure that the right steps are taken against the Iranian regime,” Mr. Barak told Israeli Army radio. “As is well known, words don’t stop missiles.”

He added: “It is apparently true that in 2003 Iran stopped pursuing its military nuclear program for a certain period of time. But in our estimation, since then it is apparently continuing with its program.”

In other words, whereas the Americans say Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program while continuing to enrich uranium as rapidly as it can, Israel contends that Iran has resumed its nuclear weapons program with the clear aim of building a nuclear bomb.

Assessments may differ, Mr. Barak said, “but we cannot allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the Earth, even if it is from our greatest friend.”

Mr. Barak also said that what appeared to be the source for the American assessment on the weapons program was no longer functioning. “We are talking about a specific track connected with their weapons building program, to which the American connection, and maybe that of others, was severed,” Mr. Barak said cryptically.

It was only on Tuesday, Israeli officials said, that Israel received and began to assess a copy of the classified American report, which is believed to run some 130 pages.

President Bush will visit the Middle East in early January, the White House said Tuesday. It declined to provide details, but Israeli newspapers and broadcast media said Mr. Bush would be making the first visit of his presidency to Israel in January.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said diplomacy remained the correct path for now to deter Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. But he was explicit about the Israeli conclusion that Iran’s intention was military, not civilian.

“We believe that the purpose of the Iranian nuclear program is to achieve nuclear weapons,” he said. “There is no other logical explanation for the investment the Iranians have made in their nuclear program.”

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Mr. Olmert, who was briefed on the new assessment in Washington last week, tried to play down the gap in judgments with the United States. “According to this report, and to the American position, it is vital to continue our efforts, with our American friends, to prevent Iran from obtaining nonconventional weapons,” he said.

The American assessment said Iran probably halted the weapons program “primarily in response to international pressure,” a judgment Israel embraced as a call for further diplomatic action.

But Israeli experts on Iran said that the American report would make any action against Iran less likely, whether diplomatic or military, and that it would probably kill or dilute American-led efforts to pass another sanctions resolution through the United Nations Security Council.

Efraim Kam, a former Israeli military intelligence official who is now at Tel Aviv University, said the report “makes it very hard for anyone in the United States or Israel who was thinking of going for a military option.”

Mr. Kam said the American assessment surprised him. “The report says its assessment is correct for now — but it could change anytime,” he said. “Maybe the Iranians assessed that it was better for them to halt the military program and concentrate on enriching uranium,” which takes a long time, “and then go back to it.”

Efraim Halevy, a former director of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, said Iran was pursing a nuclear weapon. The American report, he said, “provides no reason to say the threat is gone — it’s not.” He added, “They can stop on the edge of the project to weaponize and decide to proceed at any time.”

As for the role or weight of Israeli intelligence in the American assessments, both in 2005 and now, Mr. Halevy said no country, and especially not the United States, would rely on a foreign assessment without making its own. “No matter how close allies are, you don’t as a rule rely solely on the information of others.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Israel Insists That Iran Still Seeks a Bomb. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe